Chapter Text
Chuck leaned against their bedroom doorway, fiddling idly with a rock band guitar, his Nerd Herd messenger bag a familiar weight over his shoulder. Bryce was standing near their closet, choosing a tie with the sigh of a man who really wanted to spend his day in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt.
Given that they'd only rolled out of bed fifteen minutes ago, that sigh was also probably the one of a man who also has really wanted to stay in bed all day - and Chuck was right there with him. Staying nice and snuggled in bed was infinitely preferable to dealing with Shaw and whatever was in that mask.
"The other blue one," Chuck called, nodding towards the tie Bryce had discarded a few moments before. "It goes better with that suit."
Bryce grinned over his shoulder; knotting the tie without even looking, the showoff. "Just my suit?"
Chuck chuckled, "Fishing for compliments, Agent Larkin?"
Blue eyes sparkled innocently. "Wouldn't dream of it, my Chuck." He sat on his chair, bending to tie his shoes. "Now, go get some coffee. You can't spend all day watching me."
"That is showing an appalling lack of faith in me, Bryce," Chuck sniffed, not bothering to smother his grin. "I have done that many times."
Bryce rolled his eyes, laughter curling at his lips.
"But, if you want coffee, honey," Chuck continued, pushing off the doorframe with the guitar still in his hands. "Then coffee you shall have."
He took one last look at Bryce - seated in front of the window and glowing in the sunlight - and strolled out towards the kitchen. Morgan was talking to someone (maybe himself, wouldn't be the first time, but Chuck doubted it).
"...It's the only way to get to the bottom of this."
Aha! Chuck knew it!
He left the corridor, seeing Morgan and Ellie sitting at their dining room table. Ellie and Morgan both dressed for work and looking concerned. Concerned the way Chuck hadn't seen them since the last time he had done to his Dark Place. Which, really, was ridiculous because Chuck had never been happier.
"Get to the bottom of what?"
Morgan's eyes widened. "Nothing! Probably my breakfast," he shrugged, reminding Chuck that he was also a terrible liar. "No, what? Good morning."
"Hi, morning," Chuck replied, turning to his sister. "Morning, Ellie."
Ellie smiled. Not her normal happy smile, but the one she wore when she was caught out and trying to look like everything was normal.
Smelling like fresh cologne, Bryce wafted past Chuck, kissed his cheek softly and turned bright eyes on Ellie.
"Good morning, Ellie!" Bryce called cheerfully, detouring to the kitchen to fill the travel mugs that Chuck had honestly been about to fill.
"I was going to-"
"I know, Charles," Bryce agreed, sending him that infuriating smirk over his shoulder. Which Chuck really did not find attractive - he didn't. Except it was Bryce, so of course he did.
Chuck looked between Morgan and Ellie again, deciding that he wasn't ready yet to touch whatever they were conspiring about.
"Okay, well, we're going to be late for work," Chuck announced, setting the guitar on the couch.
"My goodness," Morgan agreed, Ellie whispering something behind his back.
Chuck ignored them, calling out to Bryce. "You got the keys, honey?"
Bryce laughed softly. "If I say yes, can I drive?"
Chuck would happily let Bryce drive. It was just that Bryce's driving actually kind of scared Chuck. It was probably the CIA influence. "Can I use your kitchen?"
Bryce didn't even consider the possibility. "No."
"Then there's your answer, Bryce."
Chuck heard Bryce groan softly, saying to Ellie as they left: "Why do I love him again?"
"You have a crippling weakness for nerds," Chuck reminded him, playfully scowling. "Especially nerds named Chuck Bartowski. Now, let me drive us to work or we will actually be late this time."
Bryce chuckled, tossing the keys to Chuck in that annoying effortless way he had. "You have a wonderful way with words, my love."
Chuck made a face, but he couldn't hide his smile. "Dork."
A little while into the Buy More work day, Chuck had commandeered their office to go over order forms and on-site installation reports. Apparently, Bryce was being distracting by sitting at his side of the desk and doing his own work. He knew Chuck was a little stressed, worrying about Morgan and what he and Ellie were conspiring about, so Bryce decided to be nice and give Chuck a break. So, he stood up, brushed a hand over Chuck's tense shoulders and went out to find someone to annoy on the main floor.
At times like this, Bryce almost missed Harry Tang, irritating him had always been so much fun. And with Casey down in Castle, Bryce's targets for mild irritation were sadly few. He supposed scaring Jeff and Lester by popping out of thin air would be enjoyable enough, but low hanging fruit.
Bryce spotted Morgan and Hannah chatting by the Nerd Herd desk, his Spidey senses tingling just enough that he made his way covertly closer. Morgan was babbling something about Mrs Doubtfire being an awesome flick, which granted, but then he looked concerned.
"What did happen last night?"
Bryce internally winced. He should have guessed that the curator would have blown a fuse after Chuck had disappeared for the problems.
Hannah looked evasive. "Well, you know, I don't want to point any fingers..."
"You're loyal to Chuck," Morgan nodded, Bryce settling back in to watch. "I get it. He's your boss. But the thing is, I'm his boss. Actually," Morgan appeared to be internally kicking himself. "I don't want you to think of me as your boss' boss. I'd rather you think of me as a friend, ultimately. And a friend you can tell anything to."
Hannah worried her bottom lip with her teeth, torn. "Chuck, he saw his ex and her date on the monitor and he went to go talk to her," Hannah explained, very carefully keeping judgement from her tone. "Her date left and she and Chuck went off together?"
"Really?" Morgan's eyes lit up, as if something had just made sense to him. "He went off with Sarah, huh? And the Accountant was right there? Interesting..."
Bryce rolled his eyes. Some things never changed. And that apparently included Morgan's continuing belief that Chuck and Sarah were secretly madly in love with one another.
The red helpline rang, Morgan picking it up and listening for a bit. Bryce frowned, matching the expression Morgan was wearing. He blathered about hiccups and on the house and how someone would be right there.
And then, Morgan looked at Hannah with a furrowed brow. "Have you seen the Accountant?"
Bryce melted away from the aisle, taking two steps to lean against the Nerd Herd desk. "You rang?"
Morgan startled, glaring at Bryce for a very enjoyable moment. "They want you back at the museum."
Bryce inclined his head, hiding the curiosity that he felt. In nerd situations it was very rare for someone to ask for him over Chuck. "Me?"
"Apparently you made an impression," Morgan replied, a little pained to say it.
It wasn't conceit if it was true, and it was true that... "I usually do." Before Morgan could reply, Bryce leaned over the desk to grab one of the emergency nerd bags they kept there. "If my boyfriend asks, tell him where I went."
The twitch in Morgan's eye buoyed Bryce, helping him leave the store behind with a spring in his step.
The Maxmin Museum of Art was empty as Bryce entered the exhibit for the Mask of Alexander. His spy senses tingled, telling him that something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on quite what was wrong, but he knew he really should have told Sarah at least where he was going.
A man who introduced himself as the assistant curator (with a very curious Eastern European accent) greeted Bryce as he called out.
"What seems to be the problem?" Bryce asked, ignoring the urge to reach for a gun he wasn't carrying. Honestly, he'd been a spy too long, seeing danger in perfectly ordinary Nerd Herd call outs.
"We're having issues with the security system in the vault," the assistant curator replied, waving his hand towards it. "Before you go in, you don't have a phone, do you?"
Bryce reached automatically for his pocket, internally calling himself many impolite names when he remembered he left his phone in his desk at the Buy More.
"I left it in the car," he lied, because that was better than being the nerd who forgot their one line of communication at work.
"Don't worry," the assistant curator replied easily, letting Bryce walk past him into the vault.
He scanned the room quickly, a spy's habit and one that often came in handy. Nothing seemed out of place. There was the fake Mask of Alexander and... That was the door shutting, sealing him inside.
Bryce hit the door once, pulling up the schematics for the vault in his mind. Ceiling entrance was unreachable, and the door wasn't opening from this side. He was stuck inside.
Which meant, and he was a complete idiot for not realizing it, that he was trapped in a vault without a phone or any means to contact his Chuck or his team. And the man with the curiously Eastern European accent was...
Vasillis.
Right now was a fantastic time for a very emphatic Klingon curse. No time better in fact, but Bryce wasn't going to waste his breath. Not when the hissing sound filling the vault was the air being sucked out of it.
Locked in a vault by a Ring agent. Chuck was never going to let him hear the end of it. But, at least he didn't have any new bullet holes, so maybe his sweetheart would go a little easier on him.
Bryce would think about Chuck later. Right now, he had to focus on the more pressing issue. Like how he was supposed to get out of here without suffocating.
Shaw had been in this predicament before him, which meant Bryce only had one way out. Waiting for rescue.
He refused to panic or hammer at the walls in vain attempt to escape. Instead, he sank to the floor and waited, spending his time productively trying to think of the right words for Chuck to choose hugging him instead of yelling at him.
Back at the Nerd Herd desk, Chuck was bored out of his mind. He'd finished the paperwork he'd been putting off for a few days now, and even the wonderfully spinny characteristics of his chair was giving him little amusement. Bryce had disappeared from their office a little while before, but he had been very distracting - sitting there all handsome in his suit, that tie bringing out his eyes and Chuck had found it very hard to concentrate.
But now, when Chuck would really love the distraction that was Bryce's... Bryceness, he was nowhere to be found. Of course, Chuck knew that he was probably just down in Castle with Sarah, being a brilliant superspy with his best friend, but he was Chuck's superspy first. And he was his boyfriend on top of it. Chuck ought to have first dibs.
Plus, Morgan had been very strange earlier, asking Chuck if he wanted Morgan to cover for him while he went to get some froyo. He'd ever given Chuck the I've got your back nod that Chuck hadn't seen in a while.
The phone rang, pulling Chuck from his very mild internal jealousy at Sarah getting first dibs on his Bryce.
"Nerd Herd. How can I help you?"
"You can bring me my mask," a man Chuck very strongly suspected was Vasillis announced, cold and calm in the way bad guys got when they held all the cards.
Chuck bolted upright from his relaxed lean. Time to babble.
"Uh, I think you might have the wrong number, sir."
"Let me rephrase," Vasillis interrupted. "Either you bring me the mask, or I will your boyfriend."
Chuck felt his blood run cold. Vasillis was bluffing, just bluffing. He couldn't have Bryce, because Bryce was with Sarah. Bryce had to be with Sarah.
He covered the receiver with his hand, seeing Morgan hovering by the desk.
"Morgan, have you seen Bryce?"
Morgan nodded. "Yeah, the museum called, asked him to come over and fix a problem."
"And you sent him?" Chuck hissed, knowing he shouldn't take it out on Morgan, but seriously. "He's our accountant, not Nerd Herd."
Morgan stood firm. "You didn't seem to mind that when you took him with you last night."
Chuck nodded and faked a smile, moving the phone over to another part of the desk. They had Bryce. His Bryce. When Chuck got his hands on him again, he was going to get such a lecture. Going off on his own. Of all the idiotic superspy things...
"First of all," Chuck said, clipped and sending a silent hope that Bryce would forgive him for this. "I don't have a boyfriend, just for clarification." He had a Bryce, who was the love of his life and so much more than just his boyfriend. "And second, like I mentioned earlier, this is the Nerd Herd desk, so unless you have a computer related-"
Vasillis interrupted again. "I know who you are. If you want to see your boyfriend again-" and yeah even Vasillis had picked up on Chuck's terrible lie - "you'll come to the museum and come alone. He runs out of air in thirty minutes."
Thirty minutes. That was almost impossible, how was Chuck supposed to do this?
"Bring me my mask."
Morgan stepped around the desk, saying something about needing to talk with him, but Chuck just couldn't right now. They absolutely needed to talk, but not now. Now, all Chuck could do was focus on one objective - getting the mask before the love of his life suffocated in a vault. Once he had Bryce back, and had either yelled at him or kissed him for a bit, then he could think about Morgan.
Chuck darted into the Home Theatre Room, slipping through the secret passage before Morgan could catch up with him.
Rushing down the tunnel into Castle, Chuck called Sarah.
"I need the mask," he briefed, not stopping for pleasantries. "Vasillis knows we took it. He has Bryce and he wants the mask back. I'm coming down the tunnel now."
There was a pause, then Sarah said, "Uh, Chuck, don't come in here. We think the mask is some kind of a-"
Sarah was cut off by gasps and coughs, the alarm blaring through Castle.
Chuck reached Castle just as the contamination protocol shut the doors in his face, Sarah and Shaw stuck inside with gas filling the room.
Behind Chuck, the computer beeped, identifying the contaminant as cyclosarin, the Intersect helpfully flashing on it for him.
"Oh no," he gasped as he processed the flash. "Guys, it's poison."
Shaw looked at him as if he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. "You think?"
Chuck ignored him, looking to Sarah instead. "It's a designer weapon developed for battlefield use," he announced, as quickly as he could. "But there's a counteragent that can be taken up to half an hour after exposure."
Sarah's eyes found his, scared. "Or what?"
Chuck shook his head. He couldn't say it. "Look, don't worry. I'm going to get the counteragent from Vasillis. He wouldn't have shipped the weapon without it. It's got to be back at the museum."
The museum, where Bryce was trapped in a room rapidly losing oxygen.
He lifted his watch to his lips. "Casey, gear up. We're heading back to the museum."
Sarah moved close to the doors, her pained gaze making Chuck's heart ache.
"This is never going to work," Chuck moaned, panic clawing at his heart. And if it didn't work, Sarah and Shaw were going to die, and Bryce was going to suffocate alone in that vault without Chuck there. And Chuck couldn't, he just couldn't let that happen. He wasn't even remotely ready to consider even distantly a life without Bryce in it, or a world where Sarah was gone.
"It'll work," Casey reassured him, eyes focused on the road. He tossed Chuck a bag, another mask inside it.
"Okay. Okay," Chuck nodded, trying to get a handle on his panic. "Let's say we're able to fool Vasillis with another fake mask and we save Bryce," and that helped the panic some. "But that still doesn't solve the problem of how we convince him to give us the counteragent. What about Sarah and Shaw? Do we have enough time to save them too?"
Casey's eyes widened, a shrug without shrugging.
Which was really helpful. There was no way to convince Vasillis unless...
"We gas him."
"That's a great plan," Casey replied, not rolling his eyes for a change. "Except the chemical weapon has already been deployed."
"Yeah," Chuck agreed, grinning wickedly. "But Vasillis doesn't know that."
And he definitely deserved to think otherwise for daring to put Bryce in danger.
Casey's eyes lit up, the van tyres screeching as he breaked. "I've got some smoke grenades in the back."
Chuck climbed through to the back, hunting for the grenades and praying that this would work.
Letting his anger that anyone would dare threaten the people he loved fuel him instead of the panic, Chuck marched into the closed Mask of Alexander exhibit. There were vases all around him, but he ignored them, only stopping when Vasillis called for him to. His two goons held their guns on Chuck.
"Show me my Mask."
Chuck carefully pulled it from his backpack, dropping the bag on the floor.
"Show me my boyfriend."
Vasillis smirked, the Fulcrum/Ring agent special. Extra snakeyness. "He's in the vault." The smirk widened as he looked at his watch. "Oh. Look at the time. Air must be getting a little thin."
"If he doesn't open the vault, Chuck, I'll blow the door," Casey said in his ear. "Annoying as he is, I promise Larkin will be okay. If anyone is going to kill him, it'll be me."
Chuck tried not to let Vasillis see how reassured he was, letting a thread of panic come back through. Because, nice as Casey's reassurance was, Bryce was still suffocating in there.
"I did what you asked, I brought you the mask," Chuck said, a little higher than normal. "Now let him out."
"If it were up to me, sure," Vasillis replied, as if he was a good guy. "He would walk free. But the people you've stolen from, the Ring, they're not so forgiving."
"Do what you want to me," Chuck offered, staring Vasillis down. "But he had nothing to do with this."
Vasillis smirked as if Chuck was amusing to him. "You are in no position to make demands. You gave up any leverage you might have had when you walked in with my mask."
"Not quite!" Chuck held the mask over his head. "I think we all know what is inside this mask. So either you open that door and let him out or I release the gas."
Vasillis shook his head. "I don't believe you."
"Well that's too bad," Chuck shrugged, because smoke gas or poison there was nothing Chuck wouldn't do for Bryce. "That man in there, he's the love of my life, so you really should have believed me."
He dropped the mask, the smoke filling the room.
Chuck coughed a little, risking a glance towards the locked vault.
"You killed us all!" Vasillis cried, waving away the smoke in front of him. "You idiot!"
"Well, there's a counteragent, right?" Chuck asked, seizing his chance. "Where is it?"
"It's in a vase," Vasillis coughed, looking around at them all. "I don't know which one. I wasn't going to steal it personally."
In true panicked fashion, Vasillis began smashing vases at random, Chuck looking around at them in the hopes that the Intersect would kick in and show him which one.
And it did.
Chuck picked up the right vase, smashing it over Vasillis's head. He picked up the counteragent from the floor, reporting in to Casey just as Casey told him that their time was up.
They rendezvoused in the control room, where the curator was tied up. Chuck ran in and handed Casey the counteragent.
"How much time do they have left?"
Casey shook his head. "Don't worry about it," he replied reassuringly. "You get him out of the vault. And tell him he's an idiot."
"You don't have enough time, do you?" Chuck asked numbly.
Casey glared at him. "Focus, Bartowski. Let me do my job. You just get him out of there."
Chuck cracked his knuckles and got to work, rebooting the server with an ease born of repetition. He looked at the staticky feed and the oxygen level approaching zero, reactivating the system just as it hit zero. On the monitors the doors opened, Chuck seeing a glimpse of Bryce sprawled on the floor before he was bolting from the room.
Sarah and Shaw were in the main exhibit, sitting cuddled together, but Chuck barely paid them any mind. He stopped just long enough to smile before rushing the final few feet to his boyfriend's side.
"Honey, honey," Chuck called softly, sitting down beside Bryce and lifting him up into his arms. "Honey?"
Bryce's beautiful blue eyes blinked open, relief like little else filling Chuck completely. "Hi, sweetheart," Bryce murmured, groggy from lack of oxygen but still the best sound Chuck had ever heard. "What happened?"
"You passed out," Chuck said, letting his worry out. "You got locked in the vault and they sucked the air out. We barely got to you in time."
"Saved my life again," Bryce smiled, eyes so soft. "My hero." His smile took on a tired, rueful tint. "You gonna yell at me?"
Chuck shook his head, pulling Bryce into the tightest hug he could. "You've gotta stop nearly dying on me," he ordered, breathing in the scent that meant home to him. "I love you. I love you so much."
Bryce pulled away a little, only to drop his head against Chuck's shoulder. "Nerd," he whispered, eyes shutting again. "Love you more than you know."
After a debriefing where Shaw told Chuck that he was nearly ready to operate more or less autonomously, Chuck had a little surprise for Bryce. He knew, with some corroboration from Bryce, that Morgan probably thought that Chuck was having second thoughts about their relationship - and he intended on clearing up that misunderstanding as soon as they got home. But right now, he just needed a little them time.
So, instead of going back to their apartment where Chuck would have to find a way of nicely telling Morgan that he was being so shifty because he and Bryce were trying to find ways of being together without him around (a far more plausible explanation that Chuck not being one hundred percent head over heels for Bryce), Chuck led Bryce into the Home Theater Room.
One of Bryce's favourite X-Files episodes was cued up on the TV, and Chuck slipped out to grab some snacks for them, rushing back in because he didn't want to miss a second.
"You're a secret romantic," Bryce smiled, setting the snacks onto the table. "But you didn't need to do all this, my Chuck."
"Yes, I did," Chuck replied seriously. "Morgan moving in was my idea and he's my best friend. But, we've lost a lot of us time. And with you and the vault today, I just need some us time, honey. I just want it to be us for a while."
Bryce's eyes went impossibly soft, his smile small and tender. "You are a romantic, Charles Bartowski," he said, brushing his fingers over Chuck's cheek. "And I don't know what-"
Chuck stopped him talking with a kiss, not wanting to get into that argument tonight. Not when this was all about how much they loved each other, nothing else mattering but that. There was a noise like the door closing, but Chuck ignored it. Tonight he was with Bryce and Bryce alone. Anything else could wait until tomorrow.